Cullen Family Portraits
by Emmeebee
Summary: A series of seven drabbles, each focusing on a different member of the Cullen family. In order: Carlisle, Edward, Esme, Rosalie, Emmett, Alice, and Jasper.
1. Temptation

sin beckons  
not deceived by honey  
he resists

* * *

It's always there in the back of his mind, calling out to him and reminding him of how disturbingly simple it would be to give in. It would be easy to let himself be swept away in its tide of degeneracy. All it would take is a momentary lapse of reason – a _single bite_ – and the bloodlust would take over. Within moments, he would find himself stranded in the middle of a sea of frivolous debauchery. The shoreline would be out of sight, and so he would have no way of ever returning to it. As such, no one would expect him to seriously try. He could exert a token effort before giving up gracefully and without consequence. From that point on, he wouldn't have to think anymore; he could just be and, more importantly, do.

The idea repels him, yet, even when he's at his most resolute, its temptations resound in his head like sweet nothings whispered into a lover's ear. Honey paints the murmurs with a thick coat of sweetness, concealing the true violence of the words. He has heard enough about the pleasure of succumbing to know that all of its promises are completely founded. After all, Aro used to take great joy in describing the experience in painstaking detail in an attempt to lure him into the swell.

Humans and vampires alike inevitably get dragged under the glistening surface, but only one of them can indefinitely survive without air. He could survive forever out there, survive until the stars stop burning and the world stops turning. Judgement might chase him, but he could run with the speed of the sunlight that sends sparkles across his skin like a message and the never-ending endurance of the gravity that keeps him grounded.

One day, however, he would be caught. A snare would entrap him, and something would kill him; a venomous snake, perhaps, or a shark. It would be an excruciating end to a gratuitous life, demanding payment for an elongated half-life of selfishness. And then all of the repercussions would catch back up to him, only the wait would have sharpened their edges and amplified the agony of punishment.

It is tempting to give in anyway. Volterra would welcome him back in a human's heartbeat; he could return to his old friends to live among them and run alongside them. They could live together in the false bliss of ignorance and use all of the resources of the Volturi to hold off their pursuer.

But he doesn't want that.

Because it's not just about the consequences and the uncertainty and the fear; that he could risk. He could conceivably live until Judgement Day; he could revel for centuries before repenting, toying with the rush of the chase before saving himself from the penalties.

The thing is that it's also about life and love and faith. Human life is worth more than sating his tastebuds or quenching his thirst. Love and compassion constantly pleads with him to resist the urges, their voices a shout in comparison to the blood's whisper. And his faith promises him that there is more and makes him yearn to meet his omnipresent shepherd.

He knows that Edward thinks he's some sort of saint. Despite his mindreading abilities, he somehow thinks Carlisle's a better man than he actually is. It's flattering and motivating and reinforces his desire to constantly strive to be a better person, but, in his opinion, it's far from true.

After all, he's only doing what any decent human being would do.

* * *

A/N: Written for the If You Dare Challenge for the prompt, 'Angel on the Precipice'.


	2. Voices

absolute silence –  
but still he hears voices  
chattering away

* * *

The forest has quickly become his sanctuary; it's the only place he can truly get a reprieve from the hustle and bustle of the world. He comes here whenever the voices become too difficult to endure. His adopted father likes to immerse himself in the world in order to feel normal, as if being among humans and making himself useful to them will make him one of them again, but Edward finds that the only time he achieves even a semblance of normality is when he's totally alone. The prospect of moving to the wilderness somewhere has always appealed to him. Alas, his parents and youngest sister crave human company too much for that to ever be a viable option for them. They've tried it multiple times in the past, but their minds and thoughts grew restless each time, and his eventual offer to return to civilisation was invariably met with poorly veiled joy.

Still, he could see his family living on the outskirts of some city while he lived in a forest a few miles away from them. Their vampiric speed means that travel is never a concern for them, and it would give him enough distance to escape their thoughts.

Especially at night-time. To his dismay, the thoughts he most wants to avoid are the ones they are least equipped to filter out.

In the midst of everything, Bella is his absolution and his reprieve. With her, he can talk to someone without being automatically privy to the hundreds of little unvoiced observations that run through a person's head on a daily basis. It frustrates him that he can't know her as absolutely as he knows strangers passed on the street, but it grants him relief nevertheless. She feels like his second chance at life.

But, however much they both wish it, she can't be with him all of the time. She has obligations and friends and a life of her own. And, at the moment, part of that life is visiting Florida to celebrate her mother's birthday.

Ever since she left, he's been spending his nights at home again. His productivity has increased exponentially, but it's come at a steep price; he isn't sure if his family's thoughts have become louder or if he's merely lost his tolerance for it, but not even the tempestuous sounds of the piano as he pounds out brooding note after brooding note have been able to drone out their rowdy thoughts.

Out there, everything is loud and incessant. School is like a high school dance party; the music might have its surges and lulls, but it's always there and almost always quick to emotion. Even the outskirts of the forest is like a minefield peppered with random bursts of noise that he could stumble across at any moment.

This deep in its depths, however, the voices are too far away to reach him. Birds chirrup and branches creak and mammals rustle, but none of that bothers him. Those little sounds, after all, are completely natural. Having the chance to enjoy them with a quiet mind feels like bliss; he can close his eyes and let everything else slip away. Questions about fate and moral culpability, thoughts about duty and expectations, and even feelings about Bella and his family fade into the background until he's merely _there_ , just being, no strings attached. In the woods, after all, real life fades away until all that's left are mere moments. And, in those unconnected moments, he can be free.

 _Guys, I smell a leech. I think it's one of the Cullens, but I'm going in to check._

He flinches as the sound of the rapidly approaching shape-shifter assaults his mind, shattering his tranquillity with the tact of a gunshot piercing through the night.

Sometimes, not even his wood-moments guarantee solitude.

* * *

A/N: Written for the If You Dare Challenge for the prompt, 'Tricks of the Mind'. Also, I watched Into the Woods for the first time not long before I first wrote this, which shone through a bit at the end.

Thank you to everyone who has favourited, followed or reviewed this. This chapter is slightly AU in that the only time Bella actually visits Florida in the books is with Edward.


	3. Guilt

the sun sets  
on a life like his:  
short

* * *

The wind whistles over the lake as she stares into its dark depths. Sometimes, when her husband is at work and her children at school and she's stuck on how to design a particular restoration project, she likes to run to Port Angeles to spend a few hours sight-seeing and people-watching. Reconnecting with people and nature, even in such a tangential way, tends to restore her creative reserves so that she can see things in new ways. After living for over a hundred years, she has most of it in her head, but she sometimes needs to be revitalised before she can use those ideas. The water might be uncharacteristically murky, but it still helps her to clear her mind of the cacophony of thoughts and ideas that usually run through it at the speed of light. A school of fish darts around just beneath the surface, camouflaged enough that she wouldn't have been able to spot them had she still been human.

Human. It's been so many lifetimes since she's been able to remember what it was like to be human, let alone since she's been one. The taste of good food, the ache of sunburn, the warmth of a body with a beating heart… Those things are all long gone now. It's as if her old life was reduced to ashes when the fire of venom pumping through her bloodstream purged her and made her anew. She can never be sure whether it's better this way. The not-remembering helps her cope with her life as it is, but it also creates a tantalising mystery that she will never be able to solve. The very fact that the human experience is so elusive makes it that much more precious to her, and she knows she'll never stop reaching out to reconnect with it in whatever way she can.

She's never lamented her husband's decision to change her. Her family is worth everything, even the bloodlust and the forced withdrawal from human society. They are where she belongs, and they are where she plans to stay. The little that she does remember of her first life is plagued with manipulations and control and restrictions. She vaguely remembers her parents pressuring her to marry rather than work, her first husband abusing her, and her parents insisting that it was her duty to endure it. They come more as a biography or autobiography than actual sensory memories, but they elucidate how much happier and freer her life is now. When he first turned her, Carlisle was initially worried that she might try to kill herself again, but that belief has always been utterly unfounded.

Still, it's hard to entirely shake the constraints of her upbringing. Even though she's content and free and blossoming, and even though she knows what her marriage did to her and would have done to her son, part of her occasionally feels guilty for leaving. In that era, it was a woman's duty to stand by her husband no matter what he did; her parents weren't the only ones who would have expected her to stay with him. She hates that she thinks that way. She is one of the lucky ones who successfully escaped, who live past the sunset and into the dawn; she shouldn't disrespect that by second-guessing herself. That knowledge just adds more guilt into the mix, however, until, like a meal that's been spiced too many times, it overwhelms and chokes her, sending her running for water and relief. She always hastily pushes it aside, and Carlisle has helped enough victims of abuse to know how to be with her through it, but it always comes back eventually. After all, the thoughts come unbidden and it's harder to put them aside than it is to have them.

* * *

A/N: Thank you again to everyone who has followed, favourited, or reviewed this.

Challenge: If You Dare Challenge – prompt: guilt.

My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who was impacted by the terror attacks that occurred two days ago.


	4. Haunted

A/N: I've raised the rating to M as I found that I couldn't really delve into Rosalie's character without addressing the effects of the obvious. (With that in mind, trigger warning: rape.) My apologies to anyone who wouldn't have read this had it started off at this new rating.

* * *

beautiful eyes  
shining like diamonds  
cut with pain

* * *

It has, for the most part, faded like an old pair of jeans. The very fabric of it, the thing that makes it _it_ , lost its colour and definition until, although it once went everywhere with her, the only thing to do was to stuff it into the back of her wardrobe of memories. There, now relegated to the role of keepsake rather than functional outerwear, it remains.

She can't say she's upset that it's lost its potency. Most of the time, her conscious mind is able to forget about the events that once tore her picture perfect life apart. It took a long time to get here, but she can now talk to men and boys without being filled with fear at what they might do to her or rage at what a select few already did. The swift revenge she once took gives her some solace, and the knowledge that she could overcome any assailant reassures her, but the real balm is her determination not to let herself be destroyed by the man she once planned to give her future to.

Every now and again, however, a random person will pull it out of the closet and, holding it up for the room to see, casually comment on it to her. Without realising its implications, they treat it as if that part of her is theirs to share. They ogle her, or gossip about how there's only one thing a man would want with someone like her, or talk to her as if she owes them her time and attention. They assume that her beautiful eyes and otherworldly allure are there solely for their benefit.

She's gotten used to letting people down with a glare or a sneer or a carefully-directed barb; oftentimes it's easier to play into their claims that she's a mindless bitch than it is to lecture them about why they're wrong. Sometimes, she's too tired and disillusioned with the world to reply. At those times, Emmett steps in for her, shedding his façade of carelessness with a well-timed scowl or a stage-whispered confession of love.

After all, while the imprints that it left on her have worn away over time, they're still there. Echoes of pleading and screaming – her own and others' – haunt her. She's tried exorcising them through revenge, deterring them with tears, escaping them by relocating and never looking back, but they always return, however eventual, to hurt her anew.

Throughout all of this, she doesn't understand _why_ they're targeting her. If the ghosts of her past are determined to cast down lifelong vengeance upon someone, why is it her? She was the victim; it isn't her fault she then grew fangs and acquired a way to retaliate, to stop them from doing it to some other girl. Why is she doomed to be forever haunted by something that wasn't even her fault? The men who did it certainly wouldn't have been reminded of it every time they closed their eyes or spoke to a stranger or walked down a street at night.

Most of the time, she can treat the memories like a pair of old jeans that she's stuffed in the back of her wardrobe. When they resurface, however, they always bring with them that same old pain that she's been desperately trying to escape. After all, physical ghosts, as oxymoronic as that sounds, are harder to get rid of than humans think; mental ones are no more easily diverted.

* * *

A/N: Thank you again to everyone who has followed, favourited or reviewed this.

A reviewer on a different fic wanted to exchange tumblrs after I mentioned coming across something on there, but linking to my personal one would create a trail back to some personal info, so I've made a separate tumblr for fanfic-related stuff. If you're interested in checking that out, you can find the link on my profile page.

If You Dare Challenge – prompt: Demons of the Past


	5. Salvation?

impenetrable  
like a smooth stone wall  
an onion when cut

* * *

Agony grips him as the bear's teeth rip through his skin. He tries to buck the animal off, hoping against hope that he'll somehow knock it over a non-existent cliff edge, but it's much too heavy and he's much too weak for him to even budge it. Its teeth come at him again, impaling him as surely as if they were swords. Even as he continues to feebly struggle against it, he knows that there's only one way this is going to end for him.

 _I'm not ready,_ he thinks desperately, attempting to swat it away as if it were merely an oversized mosquito. _Not yet. My mother and –_

His strike, weak as it is, merely seems to further enrage the animal, and it redoubles its efforts. He's debating whether there are any ways of making the process quicker – if he can't stop the torture in a way that keeps him safe, then he can at least do it by accelerating the process – when it suddenly flies off of him as if it were tackled in the middle of a rugby play.

 _I'm hallucinating,_ he concludes as he closes his eyes, wanting to hold onto that sight, however falsified, for as long as he can, _but it's better than being lucid for this._

Cold arms encircle him, and he's pulled into an icy embrace. It's strange; the idea that a hug could somehow be so totally destitute of human warmth has never occurred to him – it seems antithetical to the very idea of cuddling someone – but this one is undoubtedly cold. It's not that it's emotionless, exactly, but more like he's been surrounded by an ice cube rather than another human being.

"What?" he manages to choke out.

"Hold on," the most melodic voice he has ever heard replies as the speaker arranges their arms so that one rests under his back while the other hooks around his legs. "I'm taking you to someone who can help, but you have to hold on."

It takes him way more effort than it should to force his eyelids to open again. When he sees the face looming above him, however, he knows that the exertion was more than worth it. Her skin looks like flawless porcelain, almost as if it belongs in some sort of antique display cabinet, and her eyes are the colour of molten gold. A few strands of soft blonde hair rest against his face, but the rest of it whips around behind her as they race through the forest.

She's perfect.

She must be an angel. Even the way she's holding him, carrying him bridal style as if they were about to cross a threshold from one life to the next, suggests it. He remembers his churchgoing mother telling him that the congregation forms the Bride of Christ and that they will, one day, be taken up to heaven to be forever united with their Creator. In this moment, resting in the arms of someone who could only be described as seraphic, he can't help but think that she must have been right.

 _But why? After the wild life I've lived, I'm the last person who would be taken up to heaven._

Still, he can't deny the facts of the matter, and they all point to one thing.

He's used to maintaining a tough façade. His family mean a lot to him, but it just isn't _done_ to publicly admit that; at least, it's not acceptable unless it's for the sole purpose of attracting women. Yet he feels that all slip away before his eyes, as if the blood coating his body is being wiped away to reveal the layers hiding beneath it. "You're an angel," he murmurs.

Deep down, he has always believed in love at first sight, but he's never had proof for it.

She's his proof.

* * *

A/N: Note to self: finding it easier to write angst at night does not mean that you should research bear attacks at night; even if they aren't native to Australia, it _will_ creep you out. Anyway, I now know a lot more about differentiating between and responding to bears. That kind of thing might not be new to people who live in bear country, but the only bears that we get here are the kind that drop from trees, and repelling them is as easy as being as stereotypically Aussie as you can ;).

Challenge: If You Dare Challenge - prompt: Cold as Ice


	6. Memory

visions come  
memories of the future  
never the past

* * *

Leaning back against the wall, she pulls her knees up to her chest so that she can rest her elbows on them as she brackets her head with her hands. Newspapers, maps, and pages of notes accentuated with bright yellow highlighter dot the floor around her like leaves just waiting to be swept up and rearranged by a stray breeze.

Having decided that she might as well make the best of the situation, she's been focused on cracking the mystery of her past ever since her family left Forks. She was working on it before they left as well, but it now also serves to distract her from the pain of missing her best friend.

 _I wonder how Bella's going,_ she thinks as she readjusts herself and picks up another Biloxian newspaper to idly flick through, not expecting to find anything of consequence. Little nuggets of useful information have been cropping up all over the place, but putting them together has been proving difficult. It's almost as if her present life is a magnet whose positive side is connected to her future but whose owner can't seem to find another magnet to connect its negative side to; every time she feels like she's finally approaching the truth, it's like she's repelled by electric fields in the forms of discrepancies and gaps.

The video James took has been invaluable; although the sight of Bella being hurt still torments her, the conversation gave her a decade and a lead. She then trawled through newspapers and records until she found birth announcements for her and for her – she couldn't believe it at first – younger sister Cynthia, which narrowed it down to Biloxi, Mississippi, and led her to both the specific asylum she was admitted to and the cemetery she was purportedly buried in.

From there, she's managed to piece a lot of things together, but there's still so much that she doesn't know. She doesn't understand why she was institutionalised rather than cared for at home. She doesn't know what Cynthia knew about her. She doesn't know the identity of the vampire who changed her. She doesn't know what her parents were like or what her childhood was like or even what _she_ was like.

Vampirism comes with certain downsides; there's the bloodlust for one, and there's also the tendency to outlive humans and animals to the extent where they're like a revolving door of companions, and there's also the general inability to remember things from one's human life. She's well aware that those things simply come with the heightened physicality, intelligence and lifespan. Still, it's incredibly vexing not to have any recollection whatsoever of her time as a human. Over the years, she's asked her family to describe their memory of their human lives a few times. Each time, they relate it to things like having read a book or a synopsis of one. They tell her it's indistinct and undetailed but there, and that that's why so many vampires can so fully shed the restraints of human morality; they're aware of it, but it just doesn't mean anything to them anymore.

But, for her, even knowing things would mean the world. The mental acuity and endless opportunities for learning that being a vampire creates generally renders any and every mystery solvable. The prospect of facing one that might never be resolved, especially when that one particular enigma means so much to her, is therefore unsettling. She could live millennia and never find her answers; in fact, the passage of time makes it constantly more unlikely as records are lost and buildings destroyed. Unless she comes across someone else who knew her back then, someone who would be more willing to explain things to her, she will probably never know what things were like back then.

She isn't used to giving up without a fight. However, she's beginning to think that this one may have been rigged in her opponent's favour from the start. So she puts the newspaper aside and, plastering a smile on her face and mustering up a reserve of energy despite knowing that Jasper will be able to see through it with ease, leaves her private study in search of her husband. If she can't look back, she'll just have to keep looking forward.

That is, looking forward while still awaiting a well-timed breeze.

* * *

A/N:

Challenge: If You Dare Challenge – prompt: Amnesia


	7. Inescapable

inescapable  
emotions like barbed tongues  
licking at his mind

* * *

High school is, he's decided, one of the worst places in the world for an empath to spend their time. If it weren't for the practical benefits of redoing senior high school every decade, he would be as far away from that woeful place as he could get. He's aware that most people would think he were merely being melodramatic; a number of his peers view school as torture, after all, so most adults would immediately relegate him to the status of disheartened teenager. Despite that, it's an apt word to describe his experiences there, and it's a much more appropriate descriptor for his experiences than it ever has been for theirs.

In his long existence, he's often had to grapple with his special abilities. It was what made him an effective leader and soldier, but it was also what eventually broke him and led to him following Peter and Charlotte in his search for peace. He has gotten better at keeping it in check, but it's still a constant struggle. His family's presence grants him some degree of peace, but feeling their desires and conflicts alongside his own makes it that much harder for him to overthrow the craving for human blood. Although he has no plans of leaving the people he has quickly come to love, he can't help but occasionally wonder if it would be easier to control the bloodlust if he were just living alone with Alice.

He hasn't yet reached a decision on that. But, given that his mind-reading brother has never said anything to assuage the stray thoughts that he is sure to have picked up, Jasper rather suspects that Edward thinks it might be.

And teenagers, he's found, are even harder to be around than adults. Everything is so magnified and uninhibited for them. Molehills and mountains alike are twisted until they become towering behemoths of ground that seem impossible to traverse. When added to his already overstretched self-control, it's a dangerous mix.

In a school environment, that's further worsened by the sheer number of people milling about at any one time, airing their dirty laundry in his face without even realising it. It's not just a rollercoaster of emotion; it's a whole theme park full of it. Each person he passes is going on their own tumultuous ride, and he's privy to all of them. Sometimes he'll have enough exposure to one person that their feelings pull him into their depths like mermaids luring unsuspecting fishermen to their deaths. Usually, however, he just catches snippets of different feelings and stories, almost as if he's flicking through the official mid-ride photographs and catches a brief glimpse of their excitement or terror. He honestly isn't sure which option is harder to bear; the first kind threatens to drown him, but the second one gives him a sense of constant whiplash.

And, to his never-ending frustration, his pathokinesis isn't even all that helpful there. Usually, its tactical utility enables him to accept it as an emotionally grating but, ultimately, practical gift to have. It has been useful a number of times over the years, and he's well aware that it will most likely continue to help ensure his family's safety in the future as well. But, while he knows that he will be grateful for it again should another conflict arise, and it definitely has its benefits when it comes to spending time with his wife, it's difficult to fully appreciate it in times of peace. And, in such a fast-paced and packed environment, it's impossible to track and modulate so many different feelings simultaneously. He can emit a general sense of peace to those around him, but doing that for so many people at once strains him and just makes him that much more susceptible to their emotions when they inevitably come seeping back in.

At first, the task of enduring all of those conflicting feelings at once was almost overwhelming. It was all he could do to focus on not snapping under the weight of all of that anxiety and confusion. Having never been a particularly fretful person, he had no idea how to deal with that on a small scale, let alone on one as large as the one he was being confronted with on a daily basis.

Over time, however, the burden has eased. He has gotten better at enduring the barrage of human emotions and the accumulation of his family's thirst for blood. And, as frustrating as waiting is, he knows that that will only improve with time.

Still, every business trip or personal sojourn he takes with Alice feels like a temporary pardon from a life sentence. When he's just with her, the emotions are so much simpler and purer, and he's able to properly savour them for once. Their time alone together, whether they're on their way to complete a task or just exploring the countryside, feels like blissful periods of remission amidst the disease of his ability.

And, although he knows that even _this_ is impacted by the feelings of those around him, he absolutely detests high school.

* * *

A/N: Says the girl who generally loved high school and found that her friendship group didn't have much drama overall. Anyway, thank you so much to everyone who has followed, favourited, or reviewed this, and special thanks to Jessica314 for your support and thoughtful discussions.

Challenge: If You Dare Challenge – prompt: Going to school


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